


Masquerade

by ohmyfae



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Prostitution, porn without plot honestly, regency romance au, some slut-shaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:26:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Regency AU where Cloud is pretending to be a member of the nobility for Avalanche, but Sephiroth recognizes him from his disreputable past.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 19
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

“Please, allow me to introduce the newest member of our little salon. Lord Cloud?”

Cloud isn’t exactly an actor. No one can say he has any theatrical range to speak of, but that’s exactly the reason he’s here, dressed to the nines like some sort of lordling and having glasses of watered-down wine with Shinra backers. He’s the only one in Avalanche liable not to lose his cool, so he’s the one with the fake credentials and the uneasy smile, pretending he isn’t some dressed-up country hick at a fair. And it’s been working so far. People take one look at his vague expression and assume only a noble could possibly be that bored. 

He almost made it.

But now here’s Shiva, the leader of this little group of wealthy patrons of the sciences, and she’s towing a man by her arm with all the determination of a mistress in the slums. The man at her side looks Cloud up and down, and Cloud’s fingers tighten on the stem of his glass.

_”You’re Sephiroth? Okay, sure, pull the other one.” Cloud had been barely a man, then, scraping out a bed in the stables in the back of the Honeybee inn when a man walked in claiming to be the hero of the region._

_The man in the blue and grey uniform laughed and looked Cloud up and down, lingering on his gangly limbs and narrow face._

_“I am,” he said, “but I suppose to some, I can be anyone for the right price.”_

Now, Sephiroth smiles like a wolf closing in on the kill, and Cloud forces his expression not to change. He can still feel Sephiroth’s breath on his neck, the weight of him pushing Cloud into the wall of the stables of the Honeybee, the way he lifted Cloud off his toes and fucked into him with his hands clamped under Cloud’s thighs. The sounds of Cloud’s voice urging him to go harder. Faster.

Sephiroth extends a hand. Cloud takes it.

_”How much do I owe you?” Sephiroth asked, later, looking down on Cloud as he lay naked and breathless on the straw. He patted the pockets of his uniform. “Or do I pay the owner first?”_

_“I don’t work here,” Cloud had drawled. “Not like that. I’m, uh. I’m in the stables.”_

_“Yes,” Sephiroth said. He smiled and pulled out a few bills. “I see that. A tip, then, to tide you over until you... rise in the ranks.”_

Sometimes, Cloud can still see the bills fluttering in the air as they fall. 

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty to talk about,” Shiva says, somewhere across a vast distance. It’s hard to look Sephiroth in the eyes. There’s something off about them, a glassiness, a hardness, like he’s staring into a house of mirrors, and Cloud realizes with a jolt that it’s the same vague, disinterested look he’s mastered to hide himself from the nobility of Midgar.

“You’ve come up in the world, haven’t you?” Sephiroth says. He retreats to a chaise, and Cloud follows, drawn like a fish on a line. “Back in Midgar, are we? Or have you never left? It must be nice, to have a place of your own. Something to return to.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Cloud says. He sits mechanically, a puppet cut loose. Forces his lips around the vowels of a nobleman. “My hometown’s south of here.”

“Is it?” Sephiroth crosses his legs and leans in as though sharing a confidence with an old friend. “I’ll have to visit sometime.”

Cloud bites down the taste of blood in the back of his mouth, and tries not to think of the bodies in the square back home, the ditch that became their unmarked graves. He wonders if that’s where Sephiroth got his eyes. “You have.”

“Mm.” Sephiroth takes a drink from a passing tray and swirls the wine. When he raises the glass to his lips, his gaze locks on Cloud, and for an instant his eyes are dark and clouded with an emotion Cloud can’t place. He curls his hands in his lap, and holds his breath as Sephiroth drains the glass. When he sets it down, it’s Cloud who feels empty.

“I have a hansom outside,” Sephiroth says. 

“No.” Sephiroth raises an eyebrow. “You can’t just think I’m gonna—“ Cloud grimaces. “That I will—“

“And what is this,” Sephiroth whispers, leaning in again, “if not your former occupation by another name? Here you are, dressed to their benefit, using your...” He smiles, but with none of the humor Cloud remembers, “...charm to get what you want, and what does that make you? Not one of them. Not one of us, either. So yes. You’ll follow me to my cab. You’ll join me for a nice game of cards at my townhouse. And you’ll fuck yourself on my cock like the gutter whore you are,” he breathes, twining his fingers in Cloud’s with all the care and grace of a lover, “because no one can resist their nature.”

Cloud draws back, and for a moment, he entertains the thought of wrapping his hands around Sephiroth’s neck and ending this here, Avalanche be damned. But he needs this to work, and if Sephiroth even raises his voice, it’ll all come crashing down around his ears. Sephiroth stands, and even though their hands slide free, Cloud stands with him.

“I’m afraid you’ve chosen my partner too well, my dear,” Sephiroth says to Shiva, who glances between them with an uneasy air. “It seems we were both in the same skirmish a few years back, and I am obligated to invite him to the house for cards. If I can call on you in the morning?”

“Of course,” Shiva says, and he bows over her hand like the gentleman he is. Cloud makes a passable imitation and follows him to the door. The doorman slips on Cloud’s jacket, and he can feel Sephiroth’s gaze on him, judging him, finding him unworthy of such small measures of gentility.

They make it to the cab, and Cloud pauses at the door.

“Get in.”

He should run. Report back to Tifa and Barret. Set up a new plant to spy on Shinra’s cronies in the upper class. Set fire to Sephiroth’s hansom while he still has the chance.

He climbs inside.

And Sephiroth forgets him. He spends the entire ride lounging restlessly, lanky legs jiggling, gaze fixed on the cab window. Cloud shifts once or twice, but Sephiroth doesn’t even glance his way. When the cab rolls to a stop, Sephiroth spills out of the carriage without a thought, and only glances back when Cloud shuts the door behind him. His mirror eyes have returned, distant as ever, and Cloud suppresses the mad urge to shove Sephiroth up against the gate and split his head open, to dig through the mess and find the man who had laughed into a kiss with a stablehand a lifetime ago. Cloud has been so many things since then, worn too many faces, and he knows a fake when he sees one. 

“You don’t belong with them, either,” he says. Sephiroth stops in the middle of the path, one hand in his jacket pocket. His long hair is falling loose from its tie, and a wind blows past, bringing the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle. “I’m more like them than you are.”

Sephiroth glances at him over his shoulder, and Cloud sees him. Knows him. This is the man he met in the stables, and the man who murdered half a town in the midst of a skirmish gone wrong, and the man who called Cloud a whore in a crowded salon, all twisted together in a muddled knot somewhere behind his eyes. Here is rage, fire beneath a deep pool, one Cloud knows better than he knows himself. He steps forward, and Sephiroth’s lips part in the first true smile that night. It’s half of a grimace, really, but Cloud will take it.

He’ll take more than that by the time the night’s over.

“I’ll need to let the housekeeper know she can retire for the night,” Sephiroth says. He turns to unlock the door. “If you’ll wait in the foyer.”

“Bullshit,” Cloud says. “You don’t have a housekeeper. And I bet that cab’s paid by the hour.”

“And you aren’t?” Sephiroth says.

“For you, by the minute.”

The townhouse is empty as a tomb. The first floor is a ghost house, with furniture draped in white sheets and dust in the corners, and there’s a path of clean floor that marks Sephiroth’s daily routine, unwavering and precise. Cloud blows on the face of an uncovered clock, and dust billows in the foyer. Sephiroth doesn’t bother taking off his shoes—He just walks upstairs, hands at his side, and undoes his loosening hair tie. Cloud tries not to look at the faces in the portraits that line the stairs, and half expects a ghost to drift from the upper floors, wailing in tandem with the creak of pipes settling for the night.

“Yeah, I didn’t think you were a gentleman,” Cloud says, and grunts as Sephiroth grabs him by the collar. He staggers up the stairs, hooks his foot under Sephiroth, and nearly throws him. They both crash into the wall, and a mirror shatters down the hallway.

“That was an heirloom,” Sephiroth says, in a low, cold voice, “from my mother.”

“Remind me to send her a card,” Cloud says, and he’s gone too far this time, because Sephiroth’s fingers have closed around his throat, and he knows exactly how little pressure he needs to crush Cloud’s windpipe and leave him to be forgotten with his ancient furniture and crumbling house. Sephiroth’s fingers tighten, just a fraction, before he pulls away. Cloud grabs him by the jacket and pulls him back.

He doesn’t kiss like he’s smiling, this time. This isn’t about a bit of fun anymore—maybe it never was. Sephiroth kisses him with a hunger that Cloud has to struggle to match, but when he finds it, he can’t stop, parting his lips to sweep his tongue over Sephiroth’s, drawing down to suck a mark on his neck. He digs his fingers in the hard muscle of Sephiroth’s back, and Sephiroth laughs into his mouth, a low chuckle that goes straight to his cock.

“I,” Sephiroth says, dragging Cloud over the broken mirror to a massive, unlit bedroom, “may almost enjoy this.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Cloud pants, and Sephiroth’s hand twists in his shirt. He’s lifted off the ground, raised by one arm until his toes barely touch the carpet, and Sephiroth regards him with a possessiveness that should terrify him. His breath hitches instead, and his lips part in a grin as he’s tossed back towards the expansive bed. His knees hit the mattress, and he strips off his jacket.

“I pray you’re every inch the whore I hope you are,” Sephiroth says, and Cloud’s achingly hard, half breathless, seconds from begging for it. He unbuttons his suit instead, and Sephiroth watches him, blocking a shaft of moonlight through the door.

“I’ve seen you on your knees,” Sephiroth says, when Cloud’s clothes are a puddle of expensive cloth on the floor. “Let’s see if you’ve learned anything since.”

Cloud smiles, and lets Sephiroth grip him by the thighs, heaving him onto the bed. Sephiroth presses his full weight into him, adjusts him, holds his head down into the mattress, and Cloud groans lowly at the firm way he handles him, melding him into position. Sephiroth laughs again, and there’s a scrape of a bottle opening.

“This will ruin the sheets,” he says, and Cloud bucks back into him, grinding into the hot, hard length of him.

“Like they aren’t already ruined,” Cloud says. He jerks at the sting of a hand on his ass, and Sephiroth is there, pressing into him.

“You liked it tight before,” Sephiroth says, and that’s the only warning Cloud gets, the only warning he needs, because he did, he does, it burns like hell but there’s enough oil to make his skin shine as Sephiroth wipes his hands on Cloud’s back, and the pain grounds him, spikes the heat pooling in his gut. 

It takes a moment for Sephiroth to move, but when he does, it’s slow, steady, a relentless drag and push that has Cloud rolling his hips back for more. He places a hand on Cloud’s neck, holding him still, and thrusts into him so hard Cloud cries out into the sheets.

“There you are,” Sephiroth says. His voice is almost fond. He slams into Cloud again, rocking him forward on the bed. “I missed you, little whore. So enthusiastic. So earnest. You cried, that first time. Will you cry again?”

“Fuck you,” Cloud grits out, and Sephiroth yanks his head back, drags him up until Cloud is on his knees, helplessly moving with Sephiroth’s thrusts. He tries to drive down, to fuck himself on Sephiroth’s cock, but the hand in his hair twists, and his knees burn as he’s lifted yet again, just enough for his thighs to tremble and his hands to scramble for purchase. Tears prick at his eyes, and Sephiroth pushes him facedown again, pistoning into him with a force that pushes a ragged cry out of his throat. Sephiroth is breathless, urgent, and Cloud can hear him muttering under his breath, a string of filth and endearments that has him fumbling to take hold of his own cock. He comes that way, with Sephiroth still slamming into him, and Sephiroth pulls out and finishes over his back. Cloud drags himself upright, and for the first time that night, Sephiroth’s eyes are clear and familiar.

“You said I was gonna ride you,” Cloud says, and Sephiroth’s smile has no bite to it, this time.

“Yes. I did.”

He rides Sephiroth with his hands on the headboard for balance, biting his lip every time Sephiroth twists a nipple or rakes sharp nails down his side, and it isn’t long before the slow, easy peace of this in-between state disappears, and Sephiroth is fucking up into him again. Every time he loses control and bounces on Sephiroth’s thrusts, the nails in his skin dig deeper, and Sephiroth kisses him again as he comes, grinning with triumph.

“Not bad,” Sephiroth says, as Cloud rolls into his side on the soft mattress. “For a gutter whore.”

“Not bad for a sick fuck,” Cloud pants. Sephiroth laughs again, and the bed creaks alarmingly.

“I’m attending the opera in an hour,” Sephiroth says, from where he’s standing at the dresser. “I expect you to be gone by the time I return.”

“Never been to an opera,” Cloud says. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

“It isn’t the place for your sort of people,” Sephiroth says, and his shadow slides over Cloud’s face. “Or mine. Perhaps I will.”

Something lands on Cloud’s hip, and he twists onto his back in time to see Sephiroth toss a handful of bills onto his heaving, sweat-stained chest.

“That should be the usual fare,” Sephiroth says, and turns to go, leaving Cloud alone in the derelict room just as he had all those years ago, panting and naked and fisting his hands in the ruined sheets.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay fine, fine, there’s a plot now.

It’s somewhere between midnight and the half-aware state of pre-dawn, and Tifa Lockhart, owner of the Seventh Heaven bar and part-time general in the eternal class war, raises her hands in the air and stares at the rafters.

“You fucked him,” she says.

Cloud, who buttoned his jacket in the dark of Sephiroth’s frigid bedroom and took the back streets to the bar while actual nobles sat in opera seats and ate spiced almonds, shrugs one shoulder and pours himself a cup of tea. Something is always brewing at the bar, even at fuck-all in the morning, but Tifa and Barret have been expecting him, so Cloud doesn’t have to wince his way through rose hip or lavender this time. He dumps half a pot of honey in his mug while Tifa, dressed only in high-waisted pants and a loose black undershirt, turns around and presses her forehead to the wall.

“He already recognized me,” Cloud says. Barret gives him a thunderous look. “Don’t think he’ll do anything about it, though. He doesn’t think I’m a threat.”

“And he’s been on the outs with Shinra ever since Nibelheim,” Barret says. He’s the best dressed out of all of them with his rolled-up silk sleeves and dark waistcoat, and he smells like the heavy perfume of the artisan district where he and his anarchist friends hold their meetings. “Word on the street is one of his friends tried to say he was, I don’t know, a long-lost prince or something, and Sephiroth butchered half a fucking town to stop him from getting the throne.”

Tifa turns to the wall of liquor and pulls down a bottle of light brandy. Her hands are steady on the stopper. They’ve always been steady. Even when she was a teenager, standing over her father’s body with a borrowed sword in her hand, she hadn’t trembled. Hadn’t hesitated. Cloud touches his chest, running his fingers over one of the many scars that pucker his skin, and Tifa’s gaze snaps to his hand.

“Yeah,” Cloud says. “He’s a real hero.”

“But you don’t kill other nobles,” Barret says. He rolls his eyes. “Peasants, whatever. Nobles? Oh, no. Can’t have that. So your friend Sephiroth’s been kicked out of Shinra’s good graces. He might be an ally. Someone we can turn.”

Cloud meets Tifa’s gaze. 

“Sure,” Tifa says. She pours two shots and slides one to Cloud. “And if he tries to betray us? If he can’t be reasoned with? You can kill him.”

“Won’t be the first time,” Cloud says, and ignores Barret’s questioning look as he raises his glass to Tifa’s, stares into the fire burning behind her eyes, and drains the glass dry.

———

Sephiroth’s only been in town for three weeks, but the usual deluge of invitations reserved for the elite of Midgar’s upper class has thus far failed to appear. His letterbox has a notice from the water department—trivial, he can sell more of the silver that afternoon—and a single embossed card, written in the looping script of Vincent Valentine. Again.

Sephiroth drops the card on the floor. He’ll have the maid clean it later.

Except, he realizes, as he’s halfway up the steps to the bathroom, the maid left several months ago. He received her notice while on assignment, holed-away in some stinking pit of a mining town that Shinra needed corrected. He tries to remember her name, but all he can remember of her is yet another worried face under a prim white cap. Another body ducking out of his mother’s path as she lurched down the stairs in her finest gowns.

Upstairs, in the dark corner of the house that lies choked in dust, something sighs.

There is a clicking of nails on wood—

She always did tap her fingers when Sephiroth was slow to respond—

A snick of teeth.

A hiss. Footsteps. The ceiling rattles, and dust puffs from the wallpaper as something scampers across the hallway. His image flickers, breaks apart—Sephiroth can only see the shape of an eye, now, an upraised hand filtering through the dust—and a woman emerges from the shadows. She turns to face him, but her gaze lights on the far window, covered by a thick black curtain.

“I could have been a queen,” Sephiroth’s mother says. Her voice echoes down the stairs, ringing in his ears just as it has since Sephiroth came to his ancestral home in Nibelheim. Since his life went to hell. Since the fall. “Now look what I’ve become.”

She takes a step forward, and Sephiroth’s foot slips on the fallen card as he flees for the unwelcome light of morning.

———

Cloud squints in the thin sunlight of an overcast afternoon as a massive chocobo with bejeweled tack prances past. One of the women next to him applauds, and the man on the chocobo smiles and tips his ridiculous hat.

Rich people, Cloud thinks, as another Chocobo attempts to strut by on its claws, are fucking unhinged. No one actually cares if a chocobo can shuffle to the sound of a full pit of frantic violinists sawing nervously away behind a steel railing, but everyone in the crowd of well-dressed nobles seems to be pretending anyways. None of them want to talk about Shinra, that’s for sure. Not when Champion has two points up on Frances and Lady Haname has hired someone to raise Champion from egg to beast. Cloud sinks a little in his seat and silently prays for the sweet release of death.

“Oh, gods above,” says Lord My-Chocobo-Has-95%-More-Crest-Than-Any-Other-Chocobo. “Surely _he_ doesn’t have a bird in the race?”

Cloud forces himself to follow Lord Whatsit’s outraged glare and sits a little straighter in his seat. Sephiroth is sitting off to the side, smiling faintly at an older man with dark hair, and a number of the nobles around him are starting to shift in their seats. One or two stand up and move to the farther stands altogether, but Sephiroth doesn’t so much as blink. 

“Well,” says Lord Whatsit’s companion. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. Just enjoy the contest, Reginald.”

The birds start to squawk in chorus. The violins take up a slightly more desperate note, and the crowd turns their attention to the riders. But Sephiroth has fixed his cold gaze on Cloud, and as he nods, ever so faintly, Cloud risks the smallest nod back.

Cloud finds him behind the stables, later, holding a cigarette under an awning as the sky spits rain on the fresh straw. His hair is braided back from his face and twisted in a black ribbon, and his black waistcoat is shot through with gold. The sword at his hip is more utilitarian than decorative, and his boots are perfectly polished. Cloud tries not to be impressed—It took two of his friends nearly an hour to figure out how to tie his cravat, and he suspects that it probably looks a little ridiculous anyways. Sephiroth gives it a cursory glance before he takes a drag of his cigarette.

“Picking up clients?” he asks.

“Haven’t worked in the Honeybee for a while,” Cloud says. He pulls out the bills from the night before and slips them in Sephiroth’s front pants pocket. Sephiroth stares at him, outrage in the tight line of his brow, and Cloud reaches over to take his cigarette. 

Sephiroth’s hand darts out, fast as a snake, but Cloud narrowly misses him and leans against the stable wall. He takes a drag and blows smoke into the overcast sky. He smiles, and Sephiroth grabs the cigarette. “Didn’t think you’d like watching chocobos fuck around wearing bows and shit,” he says.

“Your grasp of the intricacies of culture is unparalleled,” Sephiroth drawls.

“I mean, I take you for an underground fighting ring kind of guy. Paying people to beat the shit out of each other for kicks.”

“Why,” Sephiroth says, “would I _pay_ to watch inferior fighters with poor form wrestle for sport?”

“You’re fucking deprived,” Cloud says. 

“I’m sure you would know.” Sephiroth drops the cigarette in a puddle and gives Cloud another one of his scathing looks. “I take it you used to sell your body in more ways than one, then.”

Cloud shrugs. “So did you.”

Rain patters in the mud, churning it into a froth. Behind them, prize chocobos cluck and chitter, alarmed by the drumming of rain on the metal roof. 

“Excuse me.”

“Shinra paid you to kill people,” Cloud says. His pulse thrums in his fingers, his chest, his throat. Barret’s going to kill him for this. “They told you to jump, you burned down an entire fucking village, and now you’re smoking in a stable while the other nobles fuck off. Hell, at least _my_ pimp gave me healthcare. What did yours give you?”

Sephiroth has him in the mud before Cloud can blink. His breath comes out of him in a barking laugh, and Cloud presses a thumb in the hollow of Sephiroth’s eye as his knee jerks up to his stomach. Sephiroth steps into the rain, and Cloud stands, his back slick with mud and hay. 

“Come on, whore,” Cloud says, and when Sephiroth’s hand twitches to the hilt of his sword, Cloud kicks mud onto his boots and hooks him by the arm. Sephiroth swings, and Cloud wedges an elbow in his neck, driving him into a box stall. Sephiroth’s eyes narrow, and for an instant, Cloud can feel a jolt of phantom pain in his chest, the sharp bite of steel on his hands. 

“I know you,” Sephiroth says, in a low voice. “Where do I know you?”

The sword at Sephiroth’s side scrapes against the wood as Cloud bears down on him, muscles straining. 

“Stables,” Cloud says, and Sephiroth smiles. He grabs Cloud by the cravat and parts his lips for him, breathing him in even as Cloud’s elbow jabs into his throat, and Cloud’s grip loosens. He repositions himself, slides his arm down so his left hand is wrapped tight around Sephiroth’s neck, and feels the heat of him against his fingers. He pops the button of Sephiroth’s trousers with his free hand, and Sephiroth bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.

His cock is already hard when Cloud takes him in hand.

“Bet it kills you,” Cloud whispers, as Sephiroth grits his teeth at the pressure of Cloud’s palm rolling over the head of his cock. “Getting on your knees for someone like me.”

Sephiroth rips off Cloud’s cravat and tosses it in a puddle, dislodging several buttons on Cloud’s undershirt. Hay sticks to Sephiroth’s knees, and one of his braids swings loose, silver hair tickling Cloud’s knuckles. Cloud applies the faintest pressure, and Sephiroth closes his eyes to it, just for a second. Pre slicks Cloud’s hand.

“Wonder what else you’ll do,” Cloud says, as Sephiroth gasps for breath beneath him. “Now that you’re free.”

Sephiroth tilts his head back and laughs, cold and dark and hollow, before he wrenches himself free of Cloud’s grip and twists the shoulders of Cloud’s shirt tight enough for the seams to strain.

“If you’re going to fuck me,” he says, spitting the words like a man on the brink of a cliff, “then get _on_ with it.”

“Alright,” Cloud says, and Sephiroth laughs again as Cloud slowly lowers him to the rain-slick floor of the stables, where Sephiroth lies like one of the better class of paintings, all blood and violence and muted sunsets, with one lonely martyr abandoned in the only shaft of light in the world.


End file.
